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Elijah Love wasn’t going to turn 10 until December, but his mom and dad agreed to buy him the
bicycle he had his eye on a bit early.

Amanda and James Love showed their son the photo of the bike they had bought and told him they
would pick it up on Sunday — three months to the day before his Dec. 15 birthday. He planned to
ride it the half-mile to Beacon Elementary School in Hilliard.

But those plans changed in an instant on Saturday. The Love family — Elijah; his mom and dad;
his 7-year-old sister, Aliyah; and 15-year-old half brother, Jordan Gilliland — were on their way
home from Jordan’s football game in Circleville when an oncoming car drifted into their lane on Rt.
62 around 11:20 p.m., hitting the family’s sedan head-on, the Franklin County sheriff’s office
said.

All five were rushed to Columbus hospitals. Elijah died shortly after arriving at Nationwide
Children’s Hospital.

“He’s never ever going to be able to get on that bike,” his grandmother Sharon Parker sobbed
yesterday.

In the other car, the two passengers died at the scene — Sammy F. Stamper Sr., 55, of South
Bloomfield, and his 29-year-old son, Samuel Scott Stamper, of Orient. The driver — Melissa Ann
Robins, 32 — was in fair condition at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center.

Robins was Samuel Stamper’s girlfriend, said Emma Hensley, the mother of the elder Stamper.

The crash is still being investigated.

Since a deputy knocked on their door at 2 a.m. Sunday, Parker and her husband, Donald, have been
shuttling from hospital to hospital.

Aliyah is at Children’s with a broken ankle, along with Jordan. Mr. Love is at Mount Carmel West
with internal bleeding. His wife is at Grant with two broken legs; doctors said it will be a
struggle for her to walk again, Mrs. Parker said.

Aliyah doesn’t yet know that the brother she did everything with, who ate the food off her plate
when she was finished, who kept the truth about Santa Claus from her long after he had figured it
out, isn’t going to be there for her anymore.

Elijah loved watching his big brother, Jordan — Mr. Love’s son from an earlier relationship —
play football for Westfall High School, Mrs. Parker said. The Mustangs had an away game against
Logan Elm on Saturday night; Jordan was headed back to Hilliard with his family for a weekend
visit.

The Parkers had spent most of the summer with Elijah and Aliyah. They bought season passes to
the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium, went to the YMCA pool and visited the Franklin County fair. Elijah
was learning manners, sending handwritten thank-you notes for the outings addressed to “Meemaw and
Peepaw Parker” at their Far West Side house.

As the family begins to pull their shattered lives back together, Mrs. Parker hopes Elijah’s
spirit will carry her through, she said.